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Though
the entire region has switched to commingling, cities now
have different rules. Call your hauler for details (check
your bill for the phone number) or contact Metro Recycling
Information: e-mail to
mri@metro.
dst.or.us
or phone 234-3000.
Owens-Brockway
uses a row of cylindrical 2,500-degree furnaces, three stories
high, to produce glass for 1 million bottles a year. They
are used in brands such as Michelob Amber Bock and Willamette
Valley wine.
The
city of Portland rescues about 52 percent of its waste stream
from dumps each year for reuse, versus 37 percent for the
state. That's because recycling programs are cheaper and
easier in areas of high population density, officials say.
In 1995,
Portland made recycling mandatory for
businesses within city limits. In return, businesses retained
the right to negotiate rates and choose their waste haulers.
No other city within Metro's boundaries has mandatory
recycling.
The
United States exports about 1.8 million tons of residential
mixed paper (think junk mail) per year, mostly to Asia.
Thanks to recycling, the amount of RMP available has increased
190 percent this decade, even through production remains
the same
Tipping
fees in the Northwest vary tremendously, according to Eric
Merrill of Waste Connections, ranging from about $18 per
ton in Corvallis to nearly $100 per ton in Spokane.
Already
the nation's largest waste company, Houston-based WMI became
even larger last year when USA Waste, the third-largest,
bought it and merged the two operations under the Waste
Management name. Its 1998 earnings were $12.7 billion.
WMI's
contract renegotiation with Metro, which lowered average
dumping fees from $23.94 a ton to $17.37 a ton, was triggered
by the company's merger with USA Waste in July 1998.
Waste
Connection says it offered to pay all Metro fees and taxes
if the agency allowed the company to bring Oregon waste
across the Columbia River.
In Europe,
several countries have begun taxing manufacturers for making
nonrecyclable goods and using needless packaging.
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1
Commingling isn't just about
recycling rates
On Oct. 1, Portlanders awoke to a new era of recycling.
Called commingling, the new rules mean that you only have
to sort your recyclables into two to four batches, depending
on where you live. No longer, for example, do you have to
separate clear glass from colored or Coke cans from milk
jugs.
The idea was promoted as a way to increase recycling. Its
main proponents have been for-profit haulers such as Waste
Management Inc.
Under the old system, the city collected up to 14 types
of recyclable materials, which had to be separated by residents
when they put their yellow bins out each week. But most
haulers' recycling trucks typically had only five compartments.
So the driver would take stuff you'd painstakingly separated--like
junk mail and newspapers--and mix them together.
The system frustrated residents and slowed down the drivers.
A study done for the city shows that crews spent 46 seconds
at each stop to pick up all the different bags. Now crews
spend only 33 seconds at each stop--and those extra 13 seconds
add up. It now takes drivers, who earn about $14 an hour,
42 minutes less to fill up a truck--a savings of 22 percent.
By getting commingling in place throughout the state, haulers
will pull in millions in extra profits each year, said Rob
Guttridge of Recycling Advocates. "It's dimes and nickels
per household," he said, "but there are hundreds of thousands
of households."
Of course, someone still has to sort the recyclables--a
nasty job that has fallen to low-paid, unskilled workers
(see "Reduce, Reuse, Regurgitate").
City officials don't deny that the push toward commingling
was done to cut costs for haulers. But they also say that
making recycling easier will inevitably lead to more of
it.
That seems logical, but Metro recycling guru Steve Apotheker
says gains in other cities have been "not as much you would
think." In fact, California is backing away from its move
toward commingling.
2
The urge to merge is a pain in the glass
There are no "Love Your Mother" bumper stickers
at Owens-Brockway Glass Containers, but environmentalists
adore this smoke-belching plant located on 47 acres just west
of I-205.
The bottle factory is one big reason recycling advocates
mounted a bitter, 1 1/2-year losing battle against commingling--the
program billed as a recycling improvement.
With commingling, bottles break and different colors mix.
When glass is commingled, it limits recycling to one-time
uses like road fill and fiberglass. That means Owens-Brockway,
which gets up to 80 percent of its raw material from discarded
glass, can't use the bottles. As a result, it will burn
more energy, make less money and use more natural resources.
Plant engineer Bob Dolphin says his company uses 80,000
tons of recycled bottles a year. With Portland-area bottles
no longer available, he will be forced to replace recycled
glass with virgin raw materials like limestone, soda ash
and sand, use more energy and produce more air pollution.
That's why OSPIRG's Maureen Kirk opposed commingling. Bottle-making
is the "highest and best use" for reusing discarded glass,
because it can be done over and over, avoiding the need
to carve out new raw material. "More and more with the trends
in recycling," Kirk says, "things are not being reused the
way they used to be."
3
Oregon's buoyant recycling reputation is
about to pull a New Carissa.
Oregonians take pride in their recycling prowess.
Portland officials estimate that eight in 10 city residents
recycle, and the average household recycled 663 pounds of
material last year, way above the national average.
That's good. But not good enough. In 1991, the Oregon Legislature
set a statewide goal of 50 percent, to be reached by the
year 2000. The metro area isn't going to make that goal;
the rest of the state, at 37 percent, won't even come close.
There is, however, no immediate consequence. In California,
cities who don't meet state recycling requirements are slapped
with fines that mount up at $10,000 a day. In Oregon, "there's
no specific penalty for anybody," says Chris Taylor of the
Oregon Department of Environmental Quality.
Without any regulatory teeth, recycling's success will
rely on fickle markets and, in greater Portland, a Byzantine
system of overlapping responsibilities that is filled with
disincentives and conflicts of interest and dominated by
a company whose commitment to recycling is questionable
at best.
4
Yellow bins are not the answer
The government's and media's focus on residential
recycling is somewhat misplaced. The fact is that we, the
people, are doing well at reducing our small share of the
waste stream.
Judging by Metro's solid-waste plan, residents are doing
more than is expected to meet the region's goal of 52 percent
recycling by next year. Commercial recycling, however, is
only 55 percent of what it should be under the plan. Construction
and demolition recovery is even worse, at 34 percent.
Those lagging numbers are compounded by the fact that businesses
create three-quarters of Portland's garbage, and their trash
includes much more reusable material, such as paper. DEQ
studies show that 40 percent of the commercial waste that
gets dumped could easily be recycled.
Within the Metro region, only Portland requires businesses
to recycle. City inspectors do spot checks and pick through
dumpsters, and when they find a problem they pay an educational
visit to the offender. Only after repeated visits do they
get tough. On July 23, the city issued its first fine, a
$500 slap against Carolina Motel and Trailer Court at 11144
NE Sandy Blvd. for failing to provide recycling opportunities
to employees, guests and tenants.
5
There has never been a worse time to recycle.
Three years ago, the value of the contents
of a typical household's yellow tub averaged 70 cents a month.
This year, the same materials are expected to fetch only 15
cents. Old newspaper, for example, sold for an average of
$68 a ton in this year's first quarter, less than half the
price it reached in the boom year of 1995.
There are several reasons why prices for recyclables have
declined. On a broad scale, it's because of the softness
of Asian economies, which can absorb massive quantities
of used material--particularly what's called "residential
mixed waste paper," i.e. junk mail and cereal boxes.
"We rely heavily on offshore markets, and they've been
depressed," says Wayne Rifer of Recycling Advocates.
At the same time, the U.S. economy is cranking out record
production. "When the economy is strong, we're flooded with
recyclables," says Vince Gilbert of East County Recycling.
"When things slow down, the markets should pick up."
But there's no guarantee he's right. A decade ago, people
only collected old newspapers when prices were high. Today,
with weekly recycling, supply is constant. "Now you don't
ever turn the spigot off," says Bill Moore, a consultant
who does price forecasting for the city. Moore's figures
show that in the past decade, the total amount of newspapers
discarded has changed little, but because of recycling,
supply is up 60 percent, or 3.3 million tons. "The more
successful you are at recycling, the worse the economics,"
concedes Metro planner Doug Anderson.
Making financial prospects worse, most of recycling's low-hanging
fruit--paper, aluminum and glass, for instance--has been
picked. Such products tend to be returned to their original
use. For recyclers such as Willamette Resources, finding
markets and alternative uses for bald tires, construction
debris and organic waste will be a big challenge.
Willamette Resources, for example, currently pays another
recycler to take sheet rock, but it can sell such previously
worthless items as the plastic packaging and drop cloths
used at constructions sites. "The main thing is you have
to have an outlet," says company president Merle Irvine,
"whether you get paid or not."
6
Lowering your garbage bill will hurt the
environment.
With all the yellow tubs crowding city curbs,
Portland dogs may need to develop bigger bladders. But before
we get too smug about our recycling ethos, it's worth noting
that while the desire to reuse is important, the high cost
of throwing things away is an equally important motivation--especially
to businesses.
Central to the equation of recycling is the "tipping fee,"
which is established by Metro and covers most of the cost
of transporting waste to eastern Oregon and tossing it into
an Arlington landfill owned by Waste Management.
Currently, Metro's tipping fee is $62.50 per ton--a lot
of money, considering the national average is about $40.
It's no coincidence that our tipping fees are 50 percent
higher than average and we also recycle about 50 percent
more than average.
History shows that individuals, if properly encouraged,
recycle regardless of cost. Businesses are another story.
To them, recyclables are just garbage by another name.
While it's true that a hauler can receive money for recycling,
the costs of sorting and hauling it to a recycler may exceed
that revenue. If a garbage hauler can take scrap wood and
recycle it so that the total cost is less than $62.50 a
ton, that material will be reused. If the cost exceeds $62.50,
it will be sent to a dump.
"A high tipping fee is crucial to recycling," says Willamette
Resources president Irvine.
The tipping fee is a hot topic these days. Last March,
when Metro renegotiated its contract with Waste Management,
it saved nearly $60 million in landfill costs in the next
10 years. Some people thought the windfall should be passed
on to ratepayers. Two weeks ago, for example, The Oregonian
urged the Metro Council to use at least part of the money
to lower residential garbage rates.
As popular as a price cut might be, such a move could spell
trouble. "It would be a disaster for the marginal recyclers,"
says Rifer of Recycling Advocates.
In fact, last July, when Metro lowered its tipping fee
by $7.50 a ton, the move nearly knocked Irvine and some
other recyclers out of business. Willamette Resources specializes
in construction and demolition debris, ranging from plastic
sheeting to concrete. Irvine says the cut in the tip fee
made it cheaper for contractors to send their waste to the
dump. "At that price," he says, "we couldn't operate."
7
Portland's largest
recycler is also its worst.
In the last three years, consolidation has hit
Portland's trash industry like a 5-ton garbage truck, and
the results haven't been good for recycling.
The chief culprit is Waste Management Inc., a Fortune 500
company that dominates the Portland garbage business and
has a reputation like Microsoft with a dash of brass knuckles.
WMI owns and operates the landfill in Arlington. It also
hauls more than a third of Portland's residential garbage
and even more of its commercial trash.
WMI has a 31-year history of run-ins with law-enforcement
agencies over suspected antitrust violations and alleged
mob ties. The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating
possible anti-competitive practices such as alleged price-fixing
and collusion by WMI in several eastern states, including
Connecticut and Massachusetts.
No one is alleging such behavior in Oregon. Rather, WMI's
critics say it is doing damage simply by being too big.
Consider Waste Management's two material-recovery facilities.
MRFs, as they're known, are a key part of the recycling
effort: They use crews to sift through the so-called "dry"
trash from businesses and construction sites to find concrete,
lumber, glass and plastic, often diverting 35 to 50 percent
for reuse ("Garbage's Gold Diggers," page 34).
WMI operates one such facility in North Portland called
Wastech. Last year, Metro records show, Wastech rescued
4,856 tons of recyclable material from dumps during the
peak recovery season of June through August. This summer,
Wastech saved just 745 tons. Recovery rates at the other
WMI site, Recycle America in Troutdale, took a similar dive.
By comparison, recovery rates at the three independently
owned MRFs in the region have remained steady.
WMI district manager Adam Winston says the drop in his
company's recovery rates happened because his commercial
customers have caught recycling fever, doing more presorting
of recyclables before the garbage comes to his facility.
Ralph Gilbert, founder of East County Recycling, laughs
at the notion that customer recycling caused the plunge
in WMI recovery rates. The commercial customers that send
him loads also do recycling, as required by the city of
Portland. "These loads we get," says Gilbert, "supposedly
there's nothing more to recycle in them, and we still
do over 50 percent."
What's the difference? Well, for starters, Gilbert doesn't
own a dump. Nor does he have to answer to shareholders.
Industry observers contend that WMI's status as a publicly
traded company that controls pick-up, processing and landfills
creates priorities that outweigh the minimal incentives
Metro offers to MRFs. Why invest in rescuing trash when
another arm of your company gets money for every ton you
take to the dump?
The company also faces shareholder pressure to maximize
profits. WMI has been in financial turmoil since admitting
in July that it had overestimated revenue projections by
about $250 million, leading to a class-action lawsuit by
shareholders. Former CEO John Drury had publicly said recycling
was not a good investment for waste companies.
Privately held recycling firms have a bit more freedom.
"The independents don't need to make a 35 percent profit
in order to be attractive to Wall Street," said California-based
waste-industry consultant Gary Liss. "They're happy if they
get 10, 15 percent."
That may explain the striking contrast found during visits
to Wastech and East County Recycling. Where Gilbert employs
40 full-time sorters overseen by stern foremen, there were
only six workers at Wastech on the day of a prearranged
tour.
"Waste Management doesn't care about recycling," says OSPIRG's
Kirk. "Oregon is close to not making its 50 percent mandate,
and part of that is due to industry consolidation. It's
having a devastating effect on recycling."
Metro officials have been quick to react to the decline
in recovery rates by WMI facilities in Portland. Presiding
officer Rod Monroe questioned company officials at a Sept.
20 meeting, and Burton has proposed an ordinance requiring
that facilities like Wastech recover at least 35 percent.
8
Recycling's best friend is its worst enemy.
Recycling is Metro's highest priority. At the same time,
it must be noted that the agency earns revenue from each
ton of garbage that's not recycled, while every ton that
is recycled needs a public subsidy.
This year, Metro will spend $4.1 million on its recycling
program. That includes $1 million in grants for local governments.
Garbage, by contrast, generated $59 million in excise tax
and other fees this year for Metro, 35 percent of its total
revenues. Burton calls garbage revenue "critical to our
charter-mandated services and programs."
The conflict between recycling and dumping is evident in
Metro's contract with Waste Management. Rather than paying
WMI a flat fee for the right to throw waste in its landfills,
Metro pays a sliding scale, which starts at $22.31 a ton
and declines to $8 a ton as the amount dumped goes up. The
sliding scale gives Metro a strong reason to dump as much
garbage as it can. Not only does each ton of garbage generate
revenue, but each ton that goes into a WMI landfill lowers
Metro's average dumping cost, while the tipping fee paid
by haulers remains the same.
Anderson, Metro's waste-planning manager, admits that the
volume discount puts Metro in a tricky position. "The recycling
rate is in conflict with the incentive to dump $8 garbage,"
he says.
Still, Anderson insists that the agency is not influenced
by the sliding scale. Metro has no way to order haulers
to increase dumping as volume targets are met and rates
get cheap, he says: "We'd have a lawsuit on our hands if
we did that."
This argument doesn't hold water with recycling companies
and enviros like Guttridge of Recycling Advocates. The contract,
he says, "basically makes Metro's financial interest the
same as Waste Management's--which is a very dangerous thing.
The public agency that's managing solid waste should not
have an interest in maximizing the amount that's dumped."
9
Monopolies aren't
all bad
Metro's exclusive authority over the flow of
the region's waste gives the agency important powers--the
power to decide which company gets what garbage at what price,
and the ability to tax that garbage.
Last month, Waste Connections Inc., a California company,
filed suit in U.S. District Court in Portland, seeking to
break Metro's monopoly. The company wants to truck Oregon
waste to Vancouver and dump it in Waste Connections landfills
in eastern Oregon.
If successful, the suit could undermine recycling. "It
would open a Pandora's box," says Jeff Murray of Far West
Fibers, a Beaverton wastepaper and cardboard processor.
Here's why: Any threat to Metro's monopoly on garbage ultimately
threatens its power to collect taxes on that garbage, which
currently go to support recycling.
Then there's the issue of competition. Metro has already
lowered tipping fees by 17 percent in the past three years
and is considering a third price cut, all because of plunging
landfill prices across the Northwest. If Waste Connections
is allowed to compete, tipping fees will go even lower,
which is bad news for recyclers.
10
Recycling isn't
enough
If the canoe's sinking faster than you can bale,
plug the leak. The analogy holds true for garbage, but government
programs and consumer awareness don't reflect it. Public programs
continue to focus on recycling, at the expense of waste prevention
and in the face of damning statistics. Sure, Oregonians are
recycling more, but we're also throwing away more. Production
of trash in this state has risen from 5.7 pounds per person
per day in 1992 to 7.2 pounds last year. Portlanders do worse,
throwing out 8.5 pounds of trash a day.
Clearly recycling's great, but it's not the best solution.
"You save more resources, you save more energy and reduce
more pollution by simply not producing as much in the first
place," says the DEQ's Taylor, a former OSPIRG organizer
who once led an unsuccessful fight to regulate wasteful
packaging in Oregon. "I think we in government need to do
a better job of educating the public about waste prevention."
Trash
Talk: Where
It All Goes
METRO
The regional government may be best known for its battle
to stop urban sprawl, but it also controls the local garbage
empire--and therefore has a big influence on recycling.
Metro regulates your rubbish from your curb to transfer
stations and recovery facilities and on to its final resting
place in landfills. Metro gets a percentage of the tipping
fee, giving it an annual take of $59 million. Last year
it spent $4.1 million on its recycling program.
GARBAGE
HAULERS
Garbage and recyclables are collected by haulers. Residential
service is franchised by local government, meaning customers
must use the hauler that serves their neighborhood. Businesses
can shop around.
TRANSFER STATIONS
There are 31 stations in the metro area. Some sorting is
done, but transfer stations primarily are places where garbage
picked up by haulers is transferred to larger trucks for
shipping to a landfill. Some are public, some private. All
are regulated by Metro, which sets the fee charged to haulers
(currently $62.50 a ton).
COLUMBIA RIDGE LANDFILL
Most of the metro area's garbage ends up in the Columbia
Ridge Landfill, located in the far reaches of northeastern
Oregon. It is owned by Waste Management Inc. and receives
a cut of the tipping fee paid to transfer stations. A small
portion of the region's garbage goes
to a landfill in Yamhill County that is also owned by Waste
Management Inc.
RECYCLABLES
GARBAGE & RECYCLABLES
Nobody will take your trash for free. Residential garbage
rates, which include a recycling fee, are set by local governments.
Businesses can strike their own deals.
SORTING FACILITIES
There are five privately owned material-recovery facilities
that sort recyclable materials. In some cases they sort
recyclables from garbage; in others they sort different
types of recyclables. They are regulated by Metro, which
pays them an incentive depending on how much recyclable
material they divert from landfills.
RECYCLED MATERIALS MARKET
Recyclable material goes to a variety of markets. Newsprint
is shipped to mills for de-inking and reuse; lumber is chipped
and used to fuel furnaces; glass is shattered and sent to
bottle makers or fiberglass manufacturers; and recycled
plastic returns as new milk jugs, fleece jackets or fake
wood.
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Willamette Week | originally
published October 27,
1999
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